Date Night
by kaprikorn
Summary: A Lebeau knew better than to let a man upset his girl. An X-Man knew better than to get arrested. Falling somewhere in the middle, Gambit lands both himself and Rogue in jail, and offers to get her out, for a price. ROMY Oneshot.


**Date Night **_A Lebeau knew better than to let a man upset his girl. An X-Man knew better than to get arrested. Falling somewhere in the middle, Gambit lands both himself and Rogue in jail, and offers to get her out, for a price. ROMY Oneshot._

Disclaimer: If I owned the X-Men, there would be a Rogue/Gambit movie by now. And a television series. And probably multiple published novels focused on their relationship.

Write a short fanfiction in which a pairing is cuddling, but not behaving sexually.

Remy knew what a date was. A romantic evening walking along the beach in (next to) nothing. A candlelit dinner that set the mood for long, slow lovemaking on satin sheets. A day out filled with careful touches and stolen kisses. A date meant connecting with another person, even if, and this was a big _if_, as far as Gambit was concerned, no sex was received or given.

_This_ was definitely not a date, regardless of what Rogue wanted to call it.

A date would entail cuddling, or hugging, or hand holding. A date would, at the very least, involve the couple being physically close enough to be acknowledged as a couple. Remy gazed forlornly at Rogue's back, watching as she was jostled by the crowd, remembering the way that she had consented, after months of agonizing patience, teasing, and all but begging her to go out with him. He watched her snap at a man who accidentally ran into her. The six foot tall brute of a man apologized until he noticed her white streaks.

"Mutant," he grumbled and walked away, sneering at Gambit while he passed him. "Someone should really do something about these abominations."

Gambit knew better. Really, he did. He had been with the X-Men for over a year, long enough to learn that using his powers on other people, especially ordinary humans, was considered a very serious crime that could get him put on X-Jet cleaning duty for months at a time. He had been a mutant long enough to know that people were going to judge and harass his friends and no one was going to do a thing about it. However, as few principles as Gambit seemed to have, the ones that he did have were very important to him, and he had been a Lebeau long enough to know that if someone upset his girlfriend, then retribution was in order. Watching Rogue's shoulders slump, he brushed past the man, slipping a barely charged card into his pocket with all of the stealth of a master thief.

The woman screeched as he wrapped his hand tightly around her gloved one, pulling her along behind him and using his enhanced abilities to slip between other pedestrians without being noticed. He slipped them into an alley and down onto the main street as he heard the man scream, the minor explosion not enough to have seriously injured anyone, but enough to have frightened him.

"What was that?" Rogue asked, sounding more suspicious than bewildered.

Remy shrugged. "Who knows?"

He whistled, reaching for her hand again and holding it securely between his own as she tried to struggle away from him. Leaning down so that their faces almost touched, he asked in a quiet voice, "Would you just trust me, chère?"

For a moment, he worried that he had charmed her a little too thoroughly, until she broke away from him, her blush visible from beneath her layers of make-up. "Not likely, swamp rat!"

He smirked as he reached for her hand again, smiling fully when instead of resisting she curled her own fingers around his.

Neither of them noticed the police officer until he was not-so-gently dragging Remy away.

"Hey, let him go!" Rogue protested. "He didn't do anything!" At least, she hadn't seen him do anything. Not that afternoon.

The police officer looked at her incredulously, "I have it on good authority that he blew up the cotton candy stand, used his mutant powers to assault a man, and then ran from the police. That's a pretty hefty list."

"You don't have any proof!"

"His eyes are proof enough."

Rogue clenched her fists, and glared at the man, her temper flaring up and making itself known. "That isn't proof! You're just a bigot!"

Remy whistled, "You tell 'im chère."

"Shut up you," the officer snapped before turning to Rogue. "I'm arresting you now too."

"On what grounds?"

"Obstruction of justice," he sneered.

Rogue shrieked when he handcuffed her and opened the back of the police car for her. Reluctantly, she slipped into the seat next to Gambit, who was trying very hard to keep from laughing.

"I don't see what's so funny about this!"

That only served to make him laugh harder, and he leaned over to whisper softly in her ear. "You could have taken 'im."

"X-Men don't assault people. Even if they're idiots."

At the police office they were escorted to a cell and left in the custody of a fresh-faced officer.

The ground was hard and cold, but that didn't stop Rogue from slumping down onto it while Gambit shuffled his cards beside her. "I can't believe I was stupid enough to go out with you!" she declared suddenly, pushing up and away from her companion. "Ah should have just stayed home."

"Where's the fun in that?"

"You having a good time, Gambit? 'Cause I'm not."

Gambit thought for a moment before slinging his arm around her and declaring. "If I get us out of here before they call the institute, will you go on a real date with me?"

"Not on your life."

He waited until he felt her relax into him again before continuing. "I could get us out of here in two seconds flat. All I'm asking in exchange is a few hours alone with you."

"Well congratulations," Rogue snapped. "That's what you've got right now!"

"I had considered that." He wrapped his arm around her and held her to him. "But it isn't the same."

She remained sullen and silent while he fidgeted. Finally, he couldn't take it any more. "I have to get out of here!"

Rogue shot him a look. "This can't be the first time that you've been arrested."

"No. It's the first time I've _sat_ in prison." Normally, he would have broken himself out within the first few minutes.

She considered this for a moment. "How were you planning on getting us out?"

"You want out too?"

"No, I _want_ to sit in prison with a lunatic waiting for Logan to come pick us up."

"If I get us out of here, you have to go on a date with me."

"This is a date." Or at least it was supposed to be.

"I want to go somewhere nice, just the two of us, and not have you sulking the whole time."

She glared at him. "No."

"Your loss," He shrugged. He smiled before whistling to the guard and crying through the bars. "Mon ami. Oui, you!"

The officer came up to him. "What do you want?"

"It's not about what I want, it's about what _you_ want."

"_I_ don't have time for this nonsense."

"Yes ,you do. You were getting bored with that magazine after all."

The man narrowed his eyes at him. "True, so what is it that I want?"

"You want a distraction, something more fun than computer solitaire and motorcycle magazines. It gets awfully dull around here," he reinforced. "Men as well trained and distinguished as we are need better ways to occupy our time."

Rogue rolled her eyes.

The officer snorted, but set the magazine down. "What did you have in mind?"

Gambit pulled a pack of cards out of his pocket and shuffled them with one hand. "Why, a game of course."

The man snorted. "I'm not gambling for your freedom."

"I wasn't asking you to."

"No funny business?"

Rogue rolled her eyes again. There was no way that Gambit was just going to let the man go.

"None at all."

The man carefully unlocked the door and let himself in, being carefully to keep his back to the opening and to sit in front of it.

"How does _Blink_ sound?"

Twenty minutes later, Gambit had won three rounds, and the officer had won one. Rogue was keeping out of it as much as she could manage, and neither of the men really attempted to draw her out.

Finally, the officer slumped back and asked incredulously. "That's incredible!" He turned to Rogue, "Is he this good at all card games?"

"That's about all he's good at," she remarked dryly.

The officer blinked before checking his watch, declaring the time. "It's six 'o clock."

"It's too bad we're stuck in here, I was supposed to have a poker game tonight." Gambit's sigh was so over dramatic that Rogue had to bite back a laugh.

The officer rushed to appease him. "I suppose I could let you off with a warning, just this time."

"That's very generous of you!"

Gambit smiled as he and Rogue stood. "You can take your girlfriend with you." The officer offered.

Rogue glared. "I'm not his girlfriend!"

"And she doesn't have plans tonight." Gambit cut in. "Unless..."

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"If you don't, you'll have to sit here alone until Logan comes to get you."

"You suck."

Gambit laughed, the police officer let them out, and then he swung an arm around Rogue. "I'll even let you pick the date, chere."

"Thanks," she muttered to the officer.

The man grinned at her acknowledgement, his lips curling just a little too high up at the corners and a pair of very sharp fangs peeking out at them. He winked, and went to the computer to file his own report. "No problem, we mutants have to stick together!"

That night Gambit found himself sitting on the couch, Rogue curled up against his side, his arm resting on the couch behind her back. A woman screamed on screen as a saw blade passed through her. Rogue pressed a little closer to him each time someone died, despite her retort that she "wasn't scared," and "It was just a stupid movie."

The young woman was totally engrossed in the film, so much so that Remy had been playing with her hair for the past half hour and she hadn't made any threats to remove it. The light from the TV lit up her face, her eyes wide and her heart thundering against her chest. She licked salt from her fingers and chewed some popcorn, nacho flavouring staining her lips a bright shade of orange.

Her make-up was gone, her pyjamas were thin, and her hair was soft. Remy wrapped his other arm around her and held her as the movie grew bloodier and more and more people on screen were offed in ridiculously violent ways. For once, she didn't shy away from his touch or act embarrassed to be with him, and he was grateful for the moment.

It wasn't a candle lit dinner or a walk on the beach, and there was certainly not going to be any sexual gratification that night, but Gambit couldn't help but admit to himself that this was the best date he'd ever had.


End file.
